1. Field
The present invention relates generally to wireless communication devices and systems and more specifically to exchanging data in a wireless communication system using High Data Rate (“HDR”) technology.
2. Background
The increasing use of the Internet as a source of information and a conduit for communication, along with the proliferation of wireless devices, such as cell phones, laptop computers with wireless modems, and wireless personal digital assistants (“PDA”), has created a rapidly expanding wireless Internet. The nature of the wireless Internet is to provide a constant and consistent mobile access connection similar to a land based connection.
However, for typical applications that run on the wireless Internet, such as e-mail programs, calendar programs, applications that use the File Transfer Protocol (“FTP”), bid auction programs, etc., the connection requirements are very different. These applications require “bursting” of data based on invocable events as well as close synchronization with a server. For example, an e-mail program requires a connection and synchronization with an e-mail server only when there is e-mail to be sent and received. Thus, a wireless device (also referred to as a “mobile unit” in the present application) or the operator of the wireless device, needs to know when to connect to a server, for example, to synchronize and exchange e-mail.
Synchronization software currently used by personal computers (“PC”) synchronizes e-mail, files, etc. based on the lowest common denominator of connection performance. For example, if one PC is connected to the Internet via a T−1 line at 1.4 Mbps (Megabits per second) and a second PC is connected to the Internet via a 14.4 kbps (kilobits per second) modem, the synchronization software will synchronize files on the two PCs at the slower 14.4 kbps speed. The synchronization software currently in use does not determine an optimal time to synchronize a data exchange between two devices based on the speed with which data can be exchanged.
The advent of HDR technology, a high-speed, high capacity wireless technology optimized for packet data services, offers the opportunity for wireless devices to “burst” data over a single 1.25 MHz channel at a peak rate of 2.4 Mbps. However, for a wireless device and a base station to transfer data at HDR speed, the wireless device and the base station must be within an HDR area or cell. For example, a person using an HDR-enabled wireless device, such as an HDR-enabled cell phone, would have to send e-mail to a base station while the HDR-enabled cell phone was in an HDR area to be able to utilize HDR speed. Therefore, either the operator or the HDR-enabled cell phone the operator is using would have to determine the right time (i.e. when the HDR enabled cell phone is in an HDR area) to send data to the base station to take advantage of HDR speed.